Given the sheer weight of heavier armor, they'd have to consume more food in order to maintain the same level of fitness required to fight as more lightly armed soldiers. It's not a stretch.

Only if we assume that troops for some reason only attain a "fitness" level relevant to their armour. Firstly heavy armour is not all that heavy, as has been pointed out many times modern troops often carry far more weight in their battle harnesses. Secondly the attribute that matters most is strength, which has other side benefits such as swing/thrust damage. Food rations are historically far more likely to be based upon social status within the army and/or unit experience. Of course in the real world unit experience kind of goes hand in hand with better equipment.

I suppose a different question would be, do we want to change how we handle levied soldiers, so we differentiate between those recruited out of villages (where you're taking whoever can hold a sword) and those trained in a city (where you'd have facilities and programs to train proper soldiers)?

City training could, if people opt for actual training, take longer but train already lightly experienced soldiers, while taking raw recruits would be MUCH faster, but start soldiers out at 0.

I have spoken of this before, but I will repeat it. I believe troops should be divided into 3 types with different roles in the game. The troops we have now should form the basis of standing armies, troops that can be mobilised and moved around. We should have proper militia, troops that are truly tied to the city/village they belong to, citizens that act as a police force and defense force in one. The third type should be hastily raised peasant levies for defense purposes.

As well as having defined roles, the system would also allow for having troops that are "naturally" more skilled, due to the fact that they devote more of their time to martial training etc.

As De-Legro pointed out before me, medieval armor and weapons don't really weigh much at all, definetly not for someone who is trained.

Also, I believe what is best is that we can still train troops the same way as now, with just the training facilities that exist, but we should have the option to either just levy troops and give them weapons, which would basically mean that they are recruited in possibly a few days at most with no experience. But you should also be able to select to actually train the troops, which makes them start with experience but take possibly the same time as now or even longer to recruit.

Alternativly we could also do something where you can choose to levy troops, recruit militia, or recruit mobile troops. Levied troops could have low morale and start with no experience, but they would be recruited in the matter of days or maybe not even that. Militia would take about as long as now, but would start with minimal experience, they would also suffer morale penalties when a decent bit from their home town, which mobile troops wouldn't or they would just suffer penalties sooner than mobile troops. Mobile troops would take even longer to recruit but would start with a decent bit of experience and they could be used for war far from your towns. Ofcourse you could also have additional things such as mobile troops will never produce food in a town, even if placed as a militia, though they would still defend the town. And Levies might start running away soon after being levied. Maybe mobile troops would also cost gold to maintain. You should probably also be able to retrain them to a different level, possibly not downgrade militia or mobile to levies though, but you could retrain levies into the other two. Maybe also the possibility of them automatically upgrading once they reach a certain experience level? Though if that happens I imagine you'd also want them to lose experience over time slowly and possibly also downgrade automatically if they lose enough. With that last thought of upgrades I'm also thinking that maybe once they become experienced enough and you haven't had battle for a long time they run a certain chance of becoming mercenaries recruitable in inn's?

Sorry for the rambling at the end there. Really just random thoughts after a while.

So I've worked grammar and spelling some. Fleshed out odd bits that were suggested. I'll post a foreward I did, something kind of orienting new players for 'wat do'...rather than 'how do'.

Quote

Foreward

So you have taken the prerogative of a First One, the rightful command of humans. A worthy deed in itself, but there is much to it that you will need to know. Your first step, swearing to a liege, should be complete (if you've taken a knight offer). Finding a position in a power structure (a realm) is vital to survival and finding out about your surroundings. There are those who strike off on their own, but such a task is risky.

Now what to do? A liege may have tasks for you. They are your go-to for questions, problems, and concerns. What you intend to do will require different things, some of which your liege may provide...some you may have to find on your own. You'll find realm chatter, which varies from quantity to quality, tyrannies to paragons of freedom of expression.

Were you able to find help to decide what to do next? Good, do that...and figure out what might be best for the long term. No? Greenwardens typically offer mentoring, you may find others nearby in similar situations, or this might be a chance to come up with your own goals. Big events can take time, sometimes, First One's living life at different paces.

So now you have a goal. Be it grow and prosper as lord of an estate(s), or serve as a warrior knight commanding troops in glorious battle for your liege. You'll need to know how best to do these things effectively. So here is the Mad Keeper's Primer, the first entry in a helpful collection of observations by mentor Greenwardens. Presenting, the Steward (or Marshal's) Handbook.

A bit bare-bones like the handbook drafts, but that is the essential keypoints. I'll flesh it out some, maybe incubate a few more ideas before I post it... then I'll run some knight offers and see if it helps retention. Maybe it goes full blown academic journal-ish if other authors/armchairexperts get interested.

I've also come up with some in-game plans. Estates that demonstrate things fairly well (village, town, capital), and some watchtowers with enough blindspots to play a game of hide-and-seek. I can tell them about the overtly complicated tribute system the Wardens pay out.

I'm also going to try a more RP heavy Greenwarden in Molk. I'm not sure if I've mentioned the Molk Town Melee, but slumberblighted-old-man Greymane demands blood. It's about as quirky, but I'm going in an entirely different direction with how to keep knights.